


Return to the Sea

by TheWalkingGrimes



Series: Tales of District Four [3]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: 70th Hunger Games, Annie does not really like Finnick at first, Dark themes but not that graphic, Dissociation, Gen, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, very subtle background sex trafficking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWalkingGrimes/pseuds/TheWalkingGrimes
Summary: Like sea turtles, children of Four always return to the sea.Annie's Games.
Relationships: Annie Cresta & District 4 Male, Annie Cresta & Finnick Odair
Series: Tales of District Four [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018845
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	Return to the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> There is literally nothing special about this, but it fits in with the rest of the verse so here's Annie's Games.

It’s customary for the children of Four to visit the ocean on Reaping Day.

They stand in a line on a beach, shoes in hand - woven loafers for the merchant children, sandals for the fisherman’s brats - and wait for the high tide to come in and wash over their feet.

 _Like sea turtles,_ the old wives would always say, _children of Four always return to the sea._

Annie knots her fingers through Haley’s hand on her right, Percy’s on her left. That’s _their_ tradition, for the past five years. 

“May the odds be ever in our favor,” they whisper, tracing the words on the back of each other’s hands. 

* * *

Annie keeps her eyes clear and her chin up as they call her name.

The crowd holds its breath, waiting for a volunteer. She doesn’t.

The past four Games have not been in their favor. The taste of glory from their last victory has curdled sour in their mouths. 

It didn’t used to be like that. Four always put up a good showing, even if they hadn’t won for a decade before Finnick’s Games (that was what everyone always called it - not the _65th Hunger Games,_ but _Finnick’s Games_ ). Their odds were good, and it was worthwhile for the chance of immeasurable wealth - and for the certainty of the “secret” volunteer bonus that would be paid out to their family from the victors, even in the event of their death.

But the last four years have been a slaughter.

Four was no longer a reliable ally. They were not to be trusted and barely given a chance to play the game by the other Careers if they were not in the pack. A couple of the years they were, as the Careers were counting on being able to vouch on their sponsors - but those dried out quickly. It was too difficult to live up to the hype, and Four’s star had faded.

 _To a certain degree,_ Annie thinks numbly as Triston Ralding is called from the eighteen year olds, _it makes sense._ Why would they keep sending the Capitol their best and brightest to be slaughtered when they can keep them in Four to do real work?

Hopefully she won’t embarrass them with her death.

* * *

Hapitha has a live crab in her hair.

Annie can’t stop staring at it. She’d thought that it was plastic, maybe, or even dead. But a few moments ago it moved, minutely, and she realized that it was a living crab that must have been stunned or paralyzed. Trapped in the net of Hapitha’s expertly knotted hair.

She’s met the escort a few times - not personally, but Hapitha has come down to the school a few times for etiquette coaching sessions. Annie has only had to go to a few, but they’re all the same.

_Sit up straight, smile, be grateful, be courteous, give them what they want, make them love you._

It’s nothing new. Summer is tourist season in District Four and the Cresta’s little shop relies on the business of vacationing Capitolites to keep them afloat for the rest of the year. Annie knows how to keep her smile fixed and her eyes bright. 

Keeping her eyes bright while there’s a pit in her stomach is easier said than done.

Next to her, Triston says nothing but _his_ eyes are cataloguing every inch of their surroundings. He’s playing the Game already - _the Game doesn’t just begin in the arena,_ everyone always said. 

Triston is better than her. He’s in the year above her but she’s heard enough to know that he’s one of their best and brightest. 

_Spears,_ Annie thinks dully. _I think he’s good with spears._

“Well!” Hapitha says brightly, clasping her hands together. She’s been talking for the last ten minutes while they wait for their mentors to finish their private strategizing, and Annie doesn’t think she’s heard a words of it until now. “I have to say, the two of you make quite the handsome pair! And not to mention your age is certainly in your favor - seventeen and eighteen. Dare I say District Four may be in for a comeback this year.”

 _“Daren’t_ you.” The quip comes from the sliding doors of the next compartment and of course it’s Finnick Odair. He always mentors even though he has the least experience - not a District Four decision, Annie is sure. The more exciting faces surround the Games, the more people in the Capitol will tune in.

Holding onto his arm is a woman as old as the Games herself - Mags Cohen, District Four’s oldest and first victor. She may even be _Panem’s_ oldest victor. Annie isn’t sure. Although her gait is unsteady her gaze is sharp and she looks between Annie and Triston with evaluation. 

“Triston, with me.” She tells him, and Annie recognizes the flash of relief on his face. He’s getting the better mentor because he has the better chance. They haven’t even been on the train for fifteen minutes and it’s already been decided. 

“Which will put Annie with me.” Finnick gives her one of those smiles that girls all over Panem go weak in the knees for. Annie’s knees do feel weak but it has nothing to do with Finnick’s smile. 

They split off, with Mags taking Triston away to the next compartment so they can separately strategize. It won’t always be separate, they explain, but it’s good for them to establish their strengths and weaknesses individually. 

Hapitha remains dawdling in their compartment while Finnick asks Annie questions about her training. Annie is trying to focus, but all she can do is focus on that crab, trapped and struggling in the net. Struggling like Trisha Iodian, who lived four doors down from Annie and was in her brother’s year. The whites of her eyes had stood out in the dark as she struggled in the net, betrayed by her own district partner and screaming in her attempts to cut her way out -

“Hapitha dearest, your crab is trying to escape.” Finnick tells her, and Hapitha’s hands fly to her hair in horror.

“Oh no! I’ll have to reset it. Thank you Finnick darling, you’re always looking out for me.” Hapitha kisses him on top of his head and darts away. 

Finnick locks the compartment door behind her.

“I don’t want to know what _reset_ means.” 

Annie thinks that on another day she would’ve laughed at that.

“Alright, so you can forage, you can fish, you’re okay with traps and with knives and not good with spears.” Finnick ticks off on his fingers, even more down to business now that Hapitha was gone. “Can you shoot a bow?”

“My aim isn’t very good, but in a pinch.”

“Good. Can you kill?”

Annie looks at him blankly.

Finally, she says. “I think so.”

“No,” and now all the saccharin has disappeared from his voice. This isn’t the pampered and flighty victor who all the Capitolites love and all the District Four mothers shake their heads about. 

This is the shark-like creature that approached Trisha in the dark and bled her out like a gutted fish. 

“You either decide now that you’re going to kill or you’re dead already. If you hesitate, you’re dead.”

Annie works her jaw so that she can give a full answer. “I think in the moment I’ll be able to, yes.”

“That’s what my last two tributes said.”

“You want me to lie to you?” How is she supposed to know if she can kill before she’s done it? 

“Not to me.” He tells her firmly. “Never to me. But it’s a funny thing - if you tell yourself something over and over again, you can make it true.” 

A pause, and he licks his lips. 

“They’re just fish, Annie.”

She’s a market girl, not a fisherman’s brat.

“Do you trust me?”

The train that they’re on is so expensive that it _reeks._ And so does he. Of wealth, of indulgence, of corruption.

Of death.

“I don’t trust anyone.”

“You don’t trust anyone _but me.”_ Finnick corrects her. 

“I don’t trust anyone but you.”

She doesn’t think it matters how many times she tells herself that - it will never be true.

* * *

The Capitol is blinding.

It’s like the early morning sun over the ocean, reflecting directly into her eyes so that she has to scrunch her face. Black dots spot her vision and it’s impossible to take everything in at once. 

It’s _another world._

It’s a world that Finnick navigates like a pro, and even though she’s only seen him a few times at the marketplace since his win it strikes her that he seems more at home here than in Four. It shouldn’t be such a revelation because that’s what everyone always says - _fame got to his head, that boy turned Capitol, maybe he should just stay there._

And yet she’s supposed to trust him.

Finnick’s swimming and Triston, although overwhelmed and a little dazed, is at least paddling and Annie is floating along, towed in their wake.

“It’s to get rid of the burns.” The styling team informs her when they begin scrubbing something that _actually burns_ all over her skin. “Then we’ll give you that beautiful authentic Four tan, don’t you worry.”

_How can it be authentic if you’re giving it to me?_

It takes _hours._ They wax her everywhere, straightening her teeth, polishing her up like some kind of prized jewel - they even manage to change her hairline. When Annie sees herself, she prods at where her Widow’s peak used to be and doesn’t recognize herself.

“Will this be permanent?” She asks in dismay that her team mistakes for excitement.

“If you want it to be! But this will at least last you through the Games, don’t worry.”

So most likely permanent then.

The opening ceremonies are surreal. After they take the time to pretty her up, they throw something that looks like a blubber suit on her and Triston.

“They’re _selkies.”_ The stylist explains haughtily, as Triston and Annie flop around. “It’s mystical. It’s traditional for District Four.”

Mags, who presumably knows more about the traditions of District Four than anyone there, snorts at that.

Even Finnick’s easy smile is strained. “Vel, can’t you do anything to make them a little less… fat? They look like they should be speared and made into oil lamps.”

Vel throws up his hands in impatience. “Not in this amount of time I can’t! I never got this many complaints in District Six - first it’s too sexy, then it’s not sexy enough. You’re so fickle.”

“So they say. Can they at least lose the fins?”

“Absolutely not, then they’ll look like potatoes!”

In the end, they go on as is and Annie can feel the heat of the Capitol citizens as they laugh at them.

* * *

Well-rounded. That’s Annie’s main selling point. 

It could be worse, far worse. Her eyes scan the training center and she catches sight of the little boy from Twelve, his own eyes wide as he tries to learn everything he can from the training stations. She can see the Careers from Two snickering at him and Annie understands. A few days of training will never be competition for her years of instruction, unofficial though it may be.

_“Don’t be cocky. Everyone’s a threat in the arena.”_

_“You were cocky.”_

_“Only on the outside.”_

Annie’s outside is competence. Good enough to help out and contribute, to defend herself and help them obtain food. But not good enough to be targeted first.

The alliance with one and two is easy. She and Triston are too valuable to be left out… but not _too_ valuable. They seal the deal with their scores - Annie with a seven, Triston with a nine.

Her score is the lowest in the pack, but Annie won’t dwell on that. It might just be what helps her live.

_“If you’re lucky, they’ll take out Triston first and you won’t have to.”_

Triston gives his interview first. He talks about working on the docks, paints himself as a hard-working boy who looks after his family - four sisters he tells Caesar. His father died five years ago, when illness hit badly one year (the same polluted fish by the upstream factories of District Three that cost Annie her own mother, but Triston makes no mention of the factories).

“Oho!” Caesar nods at the audience. “So you’re the man of the house, then? The protector?”

“I do what I can to look after them.”

Annie thinks about Triston’s mother. She comes into the store to buy eggs, sometimes with a few of Triston’s sisters in tow. Sometimes Annie sneaks them candy when their mother isn’t looking.

Finnick presses two fingers to the inside of her elbow. “Drop the boyfriend.” He instructs her, nodding at Triston’s interview. “We’re switching angles.”

She’s literally about to go on. “I’ve been practicing all day.” Annie protests. She’s constructed an entire fake boyfriend for herself waiting back home for her - most of it is based on Percy and she just hopes that he doesn’t get the wrong impression if she wins. Or if she doesn’t.

“This is better. The Capitol _think_ they like the provincial story of the male protector but what they really want is someone to upset it. You don’t have a boyfriend. You don’t need one. You’re independent. You think all this man of the house nonsense is archaic.”

“Pit myself against Triston?” Annie wonders, because that’s not the strategy. At least not in the beginning.

“Play off him. Don’t be rude about it, just be playful. It will actually help both of you, give you a narrative. The protective boy with all the sisters, and you, like a little sister but you’re going to prove you don’t need his protection. You can take care of yourself.”

 _I can take care of myself._ Annie tells herself, as the music swells and Finnick gently pushes her toward the sharks. _I can take care of myself. I can take care of myself. I can take care of myself-_

“Lovely lovely Annie Cresta.” Caesar picks up the back of her hand and pretends to swoon. “You appear to have shed your selkie skin.”

That gets a bubble of laughter from the audience. Somewhere, Annie is sure that Vel puffs up with pride. “Yes, although I do miss it.” Annie is good at this part. Not the best, but not the worst. _Well-rounded._

“And why is that Annie?”

She feigns a shiver. “It’s just a bit chillier here in the Capitol! But that’s only because I’m used to sunshine all year round.”

This time it is Caesar who laughs. “Oh yes, I know I’ve got to get myself back there. I’m losing my tan, you see?”

Annie looks up at him from under lashes. “Nowhere that _I_ can see Caesar.” She says coyly, the way they’ve been trained to do in Interview prep classes. 

_“A little flirting with Caesar never hurt anybody.” Their trainer had told them._

“Oho! Do we have another heartbreaker on our hands?” Caesar crows to the audience, but it’s a joke and they all know it. Playing Finnick’s angle was never an option for her, she’s too clearly provincial. “Tell me Ms. Annie Cresta… is there anyone you’ve given your selkie skin to?” 

The audience loves the innuendo. Annie seizes the opportunity. 

“No, I’m going to keep that all to myself.” She says proudly. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I can take care of myself.”

“So we have an _independent woman_ on our hands? No man of the house for you?”

“I’m the man of my own house.” Annie smiles and wonders if her teeth look as sharp as they feel. “I’ll always do what needs to be done.”

* * *

After the interviews Annie, Triston, Mags, and Hapitha head back to the Tribute Center - Finnick stays behind at the studio without an explanation. 

“That was clever.” Triston tells her. “Now we’re foils. They’ll want us to stick together.”

“And we will.” Annie agrees, and tries not to think about how Triston would look ensnared in a net or his mother’s eyes when she comes in to buy her eggs. 

“It’s time for final preparations. Triston, we’ll talk first.” Instructs Mags, indicating the side room. “Then Annie.”

Annie cranes her neck and looks at the door. This is not the first time her mentor has disappeared without explanation while they’ve been in the Capitol, but it is likely the last. The Games begin in less than twelve hours. “What about Finnick?”

“Oh darling, his schedule keeps him so busy.” Hapitha chitters. “There’s no telling when he’ll be back.”

She doesn’t even like him. He stinks like Capitol and smiles like them too. 

_“You don’t trust anyone but me.”_

“I’ll wait for him.” Annie settles onto the couch, makes herself as comfortable as she can. Mags looks at her sharply but nods in understanding. In any other situation, Annie likes to think she could trust her.

Annie eventually rests her head on the cushions but doesn’t close her eyes. She doesn’t think she can. 

Hours pass, she thinks, and the door opens. Finnick goes straight to the bar, pours himself some extremely expensive clear liquor, swishes it around his mouth, and spits it out in the pot of the miniature palm tree in the corner of the room.

As he’s wiping his mouth he spots her. “Why are you awake?” 

“Did _you_ sleep?” She doesn’t have to clarify what night she’s asking about.

“Like a log.” Annie’s disbelief must show on her eyes because he elaborates. “Sleeping pills. Mags was supposed to give you some. Did she not talk to you about that?”

“You told me not to trust her.”

“What?” His face scrunches up. He seems slower, two klicks behind his normal sharp processing speed. “Oh - I didn’t mean _Mags.”_

“She’s Triston’s mentor.”

“She was mine first. I asked her to give you the final prep tonight. I thought I - didn’t I tell you that?”

And now Annie understands why the term _flighty_ is used about Finnick so often. 

(Well, one of the reasons.)

“I can’t give you anything to sleep now, you’ll still be catatonic when the tube comes up. Fuck, sorry.” Finnick runs a hand through his hair, looking genuinely frustrated. And more than a little out of it, even though she didn’t think he’d actually swallowed any of the alcohol. He doesn’t seem drunk though - Annie’s never seen anyone high before, so it’s possible that’s what she’s witnessing.

She wants to scream at him - throw all the pent up anger and _grief_ that’s been bottled inside her ever since they read her name off that slip of paper and redirect it at Finnick. The Capitol’s proxy, standing amongst the lavish opulence of the room they’re in, looking like he belongs to them. 

Annie tucks her head into her knees. She needs to save her strength.

She hears Finnick crossing the room and sit next to her, but he doesn’t try to touch her. Instead there’s a few beeps - the sound of digital buttons being pressed - and then silence.

And… after a moment.

_The ocean._

Annie lifts her head up. The windows of the living area have all been transformed into screens - or, she assumes they’re screens but they look so achingly real. A gull flies past, nips a minnow out of the waves. 

“It’s not quite as good as the real thing but…”

“Thank you.” Annie manages, and half means it. “Children of four always return to the sea.”

“Like sea turtles.”

* * *

There’s no sea in the arena. 

The sun is blinding as they rise up from the tubes. It’s hot as hell, and the ground looks scorching.

_“They always make the arena a little special every five years. And even more for the tens.”_

_“Lucky me.”_

_“Lucky you.”_

Triston and Annie make eye contact as the countdown begins. She wonders if he’ll give her a quick death. She thinks about his little sisters and their candy and knows she will.

“One.”

Everything is silent.

Annie is fast. She used to race Percy and Haley on the beach in the morning until they started complaining about her gloating every time she beat them. That already feels like a different girl, but at least she’s not a _slower_ girl. Annie gets to the Cornucopia third, behind Julius from Two and Triston. 

And then she’s got a knife in her hand and her back to the Cornucopia, ready to defend it. She pulls up Appolina from One and shifts her to the side so she can’t be stabbed for her efforts.

A hand reaches up and grabs at her ankle, pulling her down. Annie kicks out, as _somebody_ leverages her body to try and climb up onto the elevated surface of the Cornucopia. 

A girl - Annie doesn’t know who but she’s not Appolina or Beatrix from Two - is reaching for her knife, trying to tear it from Annie’s grasp.

Annie doesn’t even have to think about it. She yanks her hand away and stabs her knife up, dragging it as blood splatters onto stomach. There’s a few spasms and choked noises, but it’s relatively quick. Annie rolls the body off her and scrambles back into position before anyone can take advantage of her weakness.

Annie, Appolina, and Velveteer from One, the short distance fighters, hang back while Julius, Beatrix and Triston pick off the outer-districts who haven’t been scared off yet. Only one, a crazed-eyed boy from Nine, makes it as far as the Cornucopia. Appolina slashes his hands off with her sword and when the boy from Nine runs off screaming, Triston finishes him quickly.

It isn’t until it’s over that Annie looks over at _the girl._ She’s from Eleven. She was fifteen. She sang a lullaby that her parents taught her during her interview.

Her eyes look like a dead fish.

“Told you so,” Annie whispers, to no one in particular.

* * *

Annie hates hunting.

It would be easier to pretend it was fishing if the other tributes weren’t making it a game. She knows that’s their tactic - their way of surviving. 

She doesn’t think all of them actually feel that way but no one wants to seem like the weak link - Annie included.

So when one of the traps she rigged catches the boy from Six, Annie smiles as Julius slices his throat. At least he doesn’t play with his food. 

Julius wipes his machete off on his pants. “Alright Four, guess there’s some use to you yet. Those private lessons with Odair paying off?”

It’s an innuendo and a threat. 

“Everyone in Four learns how to make nets.” Triston says.

“It’s just like fishing.” Annie shrugs. “Just on land.”

She’s not a fisherman’s brat, but she doesn’t remind them of that.

In the end, the pack splits up early. It’s not even a betrayal - mutts drive them apart and by the time Triston and Annie outrun them they decide it’s better to risk going it alone rather than returning to a possible ambush. They kept both of their backpacks and their weapons, so they’re not hurting for much although Annie does have a nasty graze on her side from one of the mutt’s spiky skin.

That’s when the sponsor gifts start coming in.

Ointment for Annie’s skin first - then a loaf of bread and a water canteen to split between them. There’s a water reservoir at the Southern edge of the arena, but the other Careers are probably guarding that now. 

“They must like us.” Triston muses as he puts away the meager remains of his canteen.

“It’s my sparkling personality.” Annie jokes. For now she isn’t going to think of candy or eggs. They have no reason to turn on each other right now, but the awareness still prickles under her skin.

Triston shrugs. “You’ve got a spark in you, that’s for sure. Reminds me of my oldest little sister. She likes to race the boys at swimming, claims that someday she’s going to beat them all.”

Annie’s only competitive when she’s racing Percy and Haley. She doubts Triston really sees any _spark,_ but this is their dynamic. Their shtick. “I bet I could beat you at swimming.”

“I’m starting to think you could.”

His eyes are like her little brother’s. Brown and warm in the moonlight.

While Annie is keeping watch that night, she gets a sponsor gift. She opens it quietly, understanding that this is meant for her eyes only.

It’s a fish.

Annie smokes it for breakfast that morning and shares it with Triston. She doesn’t tell him what it means.

* * *

They make it two days before it happens.

The girl from Five stumbles onto their camp. They think it’s by accident. Triston is on watch and throws his spear at her, rousing Annie awake. 

She wakes up in time to see the boy from Ten cleave Triston’s head off with an axe.

* * *

Annie doesn’t know how she gets away, she just knows that there’s blood. Blood everywhere, in her mouth, in her ears, in her eyes, between her toes, in every crevice of her skin. Annie is blood and blood is Annie and every time she opens her eyes she sees the way that Triston’s head falls to the side, held together by sinewy muscle, his mouth falling open in a surprised “O.”

“I bet you I could beat you at swimming now.” Annie says to no one, tucked away in some corner of the world that no one can get to. Then laughs. And laughs and laughs and laughs until she’s crying and rocking. Just waiting for someone to come finish her.

It’s not fishing. It never was. The girl from Eleven’s eyes pop out of her skull and roll over to Annie’s feet and she squishes them until they _pop_ with a satisfying squelch.

Annie sleeps but she doesn’t dream. She wakes and she dreams. She’s at the kitchen table with her little brother and her parents are there, kissing her on the crown of her head. She’s herself again, widow’s peak and all and she wears her sunburn like an armor. 

“We shouldn’t be here.”

“None of us should be here.”

“I want to go home.”

Annie wakes and she dreams of a sponsor gift drifting lazily down in a silver, whistling parachute. She cracks it open.

She blinks.

A turtle.

Not a sea turtle - the kind for eating. It’s a delicacy. 

It’s _expensive._

Annie cracks the shell and eats it. As she does, she hears two more canons go off in the distance. 

She rises to her feet and goes off to search for water.

* * *

In the end, Annie doesn’t return to the sea.

The sea returns to _her._

* * *

It’s fresh and clear and practically sparkling, but the water from the reservoir is as angry as the sea as it rushes in and floods the arena. 

They’ve never had a Tsunami in District Four, not in Annie’s lifetime, but they’ve had storms and she knows the drill. When she’s able, she finds a branch to cling to in order to avoid getting slammed by debris. She hears three more canons go off. 

The branch gives way but the water is calm enough and now Annie is sure. She could out swim Triston. She can out swim whoever is left.

She treads water until she can’t feel anything in her legs. Then she floats. 

When the hovercraft pulls her out of the water, she’s not sure if they are taking her home or retrieving her body. 

* * *

“Over my dead body.”

“It’s just to get her through the interview.”

“It’s rated class _C_ for addictive properties. You give that to her now, she’s on it for the rest of her life.”

“We can wean her off it-”

“I said _no._ ”

“It’s not your decision to make.”

“No, it’s yours isn’t it? And you could recommend that she needs another week of recovery time before she’s ready for her interview. No medication, just rest and _relaxation.”_

“Why would I recommend that?”

“Oh Dr. Lavius, I think we can come to _some_ sort of mutually beneficial arrangement here. Don’t you think?”

There’s a sharp inhale. Annie’s eyes are heavy and everything is just floating by.

“On second thought, she’s lost too much weight too quickly for me to recommend the mood substitute. I’m concerned about a potential overdose - my recommendation at this time is more rest.”

Annie wakes but she dreams.

* * *

Caesar Flickerman is careful with her. 

“Annie.” He reaches for her hand. She wants to shift away but can’t. “It was so _touching_ to see your connection with Triston play out on screen like that. It must have been terrible to lose him.”

There’s no audience tonight. They’re pre-recording this and they’ll edit it. Annie hasn’t been able to get through five minutes without bursting into hysterics. By some miracle they’re not going to have her watch her games - they’ll edit that in too.

Annie glances down at her index cards, hidden under the table. “He was a good friend. We were close, back home.”

She hadn’t even really known him before. 

Caesar pats her hand sympathetically.

* * *

Hapitha says goodbye to them at the train station. Camera crews aren’t filming their arrival back home - unusual, for any victor. 

She’s afraid to touch Annie - the last time she tried, Annie yanked the sea turtle out from its nesting place in her hair - but blows her a kiss. 

“Annie dear, please do be well.” Hapitha says with cloying Capital sympathy. “Breathe some of that healing ocean air. I hope to see you doing much better by your victory Tour.”

She gives Mags a kiss on the cheek and Finnick one on the mouth before prancing back onto the train. Out of the corner of her eye Annie sees him wipe it off with the back of his hand.

Annie is received into the tentative but loving arms of her father and brother. She sinks into their embrace, surrounded by the warmth of home. 

It should feel more like a victory than this, she thinks.

* * *

Annie has never been useless before.

It hadn’t been a lie to Caesar, not really. She’s always felt like the rock of her family, the steady presence who keeps the other brighter fish from drifting too far. 

She lays in bed and does nothing. Triston’s head still hangs from his neck every time she closes her eyelids for more than a split second - sometimes when her eyelids are open - but at least if she’s alone in bed she won’t lose it in front of anyone else.

Annie remembers that everyone in the country has seen her lose it and closes her eyes. She sees Triston’s head and opens them.

People come to visit her. Haley and Percy, her other school friends, her aunt Leanna and her family. Her father tries to gently entice her to come into town with him, then at least come eat at the table for dinner. 

Her brother loses his patience and tries to pull Annie out of bed by her ankles at one point. A poor mistake, which her brother pays for with scratches on his neck that don’t heal for weeks.

Some of the other victors come by, less frequent than her friends and family. She sort of remembers Finnick there a few times, but there’s a sharp conversation with her father and then he’s not there anymore.

“Just takes time, kid.” Shale, a middle-aged victor assures her. “You’ll get past it. We all do.”

 _Just takes time._ That’s what everyone kept saying. 

Nobody wants to see their victor like this. That’s what it really means.

* * *

“I need a favor.” 

Annie raises her head slightly from the pillow and regards Mags. The older victor has been making somewhat regular visits and just keeping Annie company in her bedroom - usually reading, something knitting. Once basket-weaving. Annie finds she doesn’t mind, because at least Mags doesn’t look at her with worried eyes.

Still… “What kind of favor?” Nobody’s asked Annie to do anything for them since she came home. Nobody’s trusted Annie to do anything for them since she came home.

“Finnick’s brother moved out earlier this year - he and his wife are starting a family. His parents are dead. He’s going stir-crazy by himself, he needs something to distract him.”

"Why doesn’t he go back to the Capitol.” Annie’s voice is flat. She’s alive and she knows that it’s partially because of him and she hates that she _owes_ him because part of her hates him. Hates him for being part of it, for putting on a big smile and acting like it’s all one big game. 

They pulled her out of the arena screaming and were upset she wasn’t cheering.

Mags’s lips tighten. “He’s lonely, Annie.”

“You just think I need someone to help me.”

“I think you need each other.”

* * *

Annie goes to the beach and waits for the tide to wash over her feet.

She feels the water between her toes, welcoming her home.

Then she heads over the dunes, toward Finnick’s house.


End file.
